The 12 Most Strangely Satisfying Videos on the Internet

#6. Gravitram

The Gravitram is a complex sculpture made up of tracks and rails and loops and crazy amounts of transport devices to make little steel balls travel all over the place. It's not quite a Rube Goldberg machine, but it has the same ability to suck you in when those little bastards get set loose and start whipping around those tracks like a madman's roller coaster.

I'd ride it, I don't even care. In fact, I've just now decided to make it my life goal to one day be rich enough to build a version big enough that I can get inside a giant clear ball and just zip around that mofo like a ... mofo. You laugh now, but when you see me screaming in joy in a YouTube video in 10 years, we'll see who's laughing.

Both of us, because it will be hilarious.

#5. LEGO Ball Contraption

No, wait, I changed my mind! I want a LEGO version that's a hundred times more badass! I figure the only thing I need for a human-sized version that can contain a me-ball is about a hundred trillion LEGO blocks and the collective wealth of every billionaire in existence. Although I freely admit that I'm not the greatest at finances or math. But I do know what I want, and I want that.

Now understand that an animated gif isn't going to do this thing justice because the whole contraption is enormous, but here's a small clip for those who can't watch videos because you can't be caught fucking around at work because you're a terrible employee:

When you get home tonight, before drowning your shame and depression in a fifth of vodka and grape Kool-Aid, watch that video. If you can turn it off before it makes its complete round, you live in a different dimension than the rest of us, and I will be praying for you. Even if you don't believe in a god, I will sculpt one out of butter in my kitchen and pray to it for you.

#4. Making a Square Vase With a Round Top

There's a reason that title is so specific and not just "making a vase." Everyone has seen a pottery wheel, or at least a video of one, and everyone knows it looks really cool to see someone working clay into a vase or ... something roughly vase-shaped. But to people who aren't versed in the ways of vase creation, we look at that combination of square and round and think, "You clearly worshiped the devil to make that happen."

At the very least, you blew a leprechaun.

I think the reason this is so mesmerizing is because there's a huge part of each of us that sees how easy that looks and thinks, "I could totally do that. I should buy one of those wheels and just make all of my dishes from now on. I'll save millions of dollars!" Right before we end up with a giant lump of clay shooting all over the room while we scream, "Goddammit, FUCK this clay! This is bullshit! Fuck the ground and fuck the bountiful clay that it provides!"

But watching Chad Vasemaster whip through that pecker like it ain't no thang is so damn calming and just straight up hypnotic (if you can't watch the video, the square parts and round parts have to be made separately and attached), especially the part where he trims the base and clay shoots off of it like one of those cheap-ass Fourth of July snake fireworks. Only made out of dirt:

GAH! It's a big ol' shooty dirtsnake!

#3. Spiderman Speed Painting

This is a time-lapse digital painting of Spider-Man by Nico Di Mattia, compressed into about five and a half minutes. It's one of my favorite videos because I grew up as an artist, and I specialized in realism. I have an appreciation for light and shadow, and this guy is just insane with a Wacom tablet and Photoshop. I bet when he stops to draw dicks on the bathroom wall, the next person to urinate in that stall ducks for fear that a real one is coming at him.

I won't dare soil the beauty of this video with an animated gif. But if you only watch one video on this list, clear off about five and a half minutes from your schedule and make it this one. Then watch all of the others, because it's an article about videos and you already read this far into it. You have to stop being weird like that.

#2. Extreme Closeup of Cutting Steel

This may be the simplest video in the world. It's just a tool shaving or cutting steel. But just like with almost anything in the entire universe, when you look at it up close through a powerful microscope, your perceptions just shatter. Look at the way that steel just folds and ripples as it comes off of the cutting device.

It looks like a doorstop cutting through cake. I can't stop watching it and I don't know why. Maybe it's because of the material? I mean, tell me that it's just a razor blade cutting through plastic, and suddenly I don't give a crap. In fact, I throw away my entire computer out of sheer protest. But tell me it's cutting steel, and everything changes. Of course, that could be because I'm easily impressed and exceptionally stupid ... which is a pretty safe assumption to make no matter what I do. Regardless, if we had access to this video when I was a kid, it would have been the cheapest baby sitter my mom ever lucked into because I would have just sat there for hours, watching that while drool ran down my face. Much like I do right now.

#1. Flow Friction Drilling

Friction drilling is a form of drilling where you apply pressure and high speed to melt a big fucking hole right into metal. You heard me right -- not cutting metal, but melting that shit right in its goddamn face.

You can't tell me that if you had access to that, there wouldn't be a single surface in your entire town that didn't have a big-ass melt hole in it. Stop signs, cars, buildings, dogs. Everything I saw would get its ass friction drilled, and I would never, ever stop giggling until the day I died from friction drilling my own head.

It's just so peaceful, seeing that thing stop on the surface and then ramp up the head until all at once -- WHOMP! Right on through, leaving a melted rim around the top of the hole. The bit still searing red with the hate of a thousand demons. If that were my job, they would have to force me at gunpoint to go home. "Hey, John, do you have that job fini-" "You're goddamn right, I do. And then some. You need any holes melted, you bring that shit this way, baby, because I have plenty of holes left in the melt tank."

And with that, I just realized that I should probably take a break from YouTube for a while. This can't be healthy.